Intersection 2018: Chrysalis

'I loved the idea of being grown up, you know? And I'm not. To anybody. Not to parents, not to kids. All the burden and none of the respect. That middle ground is really hurting me... I think I killed Benny.'

In a small town, a young woman applies make-up like layers of defence, preparing to go into battle. On top of the town tip, two friends stand guard as some home truths emerge. At the local arcade, a grotesque ritual sacrifice is taking place. And a young woman obsessed with Stevie Nicks thinks she's solved the mystery about the blood on the silo just out of town...

Intersection 2018: Chrysalis is a collection of short plays written by some of the most exciting emerging playwrights in the country. At the meeting point of young lives travelling very different routes, Intersection offers a unique snapshot of modern Australia.

Each year ATYP brings together 20 young writers from across the country and challenges them to create stories that speak to the experience of being seventeen years old in Australia, here and now, creating a compelling, complex mosaic of modern life. Critically acclaimed in its first incarnation, it returns to explore the excitement, terror and electricity of being seventeen.

The plays featured in this volume are for one and two actors.

ATYP, Australia's oldest and largest youth theatre company, has been bridging the divide between young people and professional theatre practice since 1963. Each year it brings together 20 young writers from across the country and challenges them to create stories. Its Voices Project which ran from 2011 to 2016, nurtured talented young playwrights in the development of seven-minute monologues for young actors. From 2017, it expanded the project to Intersection which features heartbreaking, funny and powerful interactions between characters in addition to monologues which together create a compelling snapshot of life at seventeen.